Nov

11

Dividing DOW weekly closes into non-overlapping 25 week segments, I checked for large advances similar to now using:

{max close (recent 25W)} / {min close (prior 25W)}

Currently this quantity - the move to the high weekly close of the 25 weeks ending last week, compared to the low weekly close of the prior 25 weeks - is 0.51 (+51%). I checked back to 1929; there has not been a gain over 50% since 1983, then 1974, and in the 1930's (see attached).

Looking only at periods with gains >40%, here are the returns over the subsequent 25 weeks:

Anton Johnson comments:

A quick look at all non-overlapping 25-week periods for weekly Dow 1929-Current yields a mean return of 2.73%; using this as the baseline results in a 7.56% excess return for the R>40% periods (10.29-2.73 = 7.56). However the 92.5% return in 1933 significantly skews the small R>40% sample. Median returns are 3.57% and 3.20% respectively, not much different from each other.